Programs

About ALS Society of Canada:

Founded in 1977, ALS Society of Canada (ALS Canada) works to improve the lives of people living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, through support, advocacy and investment in research. ALS causes a progressive degeneration of motor neurons in the nervous system, which leads to impaired muscle movement, muscle weakness, impaired speech, and difficulty breathing. Currently, there is no cure for the disease and 80% of people with ALS die within 2-5 years. ALS Society of Canada’s three programs are: research grants, support services, and advocacy.

In F2018, the charity granted $1.5m to ALS researchers in Canada. This money funded eight new research projects with a focus on discovering a cure for ALS. The charity also gave out six trainee research awards with a goal of creating the next generation of Canadian ALS researchers.

Through its support services program, the charity provides equipment and support to people living with ALS. In F2018, the equipment program gave out 2,600 pieces of equipment free of charge to Ontarians living with ALS. The cost of this equipment was $1.3m. The charity’s regional managers also did 1,300 home visits to build personalized connections with patients and their families. Additionally, the support program offered more than 100 training and information sessions to organizations, vendors and healthcare providers to help them better respond to the needs of people with ALS. Lastly, the charity ran 150 support group meetings and sent 6,800 touchpoints to patients and their families via phone, text message, or email.

ALS Canada’s advocacy program engages with officials in the federal and Ontario governments to represent people living with ALS. It advocates for policy changes that will have an impact on the lives of people with ALS including timely and affordable access to therapy, improved home and community care, and research funding. In F2018, ALS Canada had 3 meetings of the all-party ALS Caucus and 7 meetings with MPs and policy advisors. Additionally, 3 parties made remarks to recognize June as ALS awareness month in the House of Commons.

Finances

ALS Society of Canada is a large charity with total donations of $7.1m in F2018. Administrative costs were 7% of revenues (excluding investment income) and fundraising costs were 29% of donations. For every dollar donated to the charity, 64 cents went to its programs and grants. This is outside Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

ALS Society of Canada has funding reserves of $14.5m, of which $1.3m are donor-endowed. Like many charities funding medical research, ALS Canada has multi-year funding commitments. In 2018 ALS Canada's research grant commitments totaled $6.4m, with $2.2m to be granted in 2019. This compares with research grant commitments reported in 2017 of $7.4m with $2.4m to be granted in 2018. Excluding ALS Canada's donor-endowed funds, the charity’s funding reserves cover annual programs and current research grants for almost 2 and a half years.

ALS Canada and Charity Intelligence have discussed this profile. Charity Intelligence emphasizes that it has excluded the money raised in the Ice Bucket challenge of 2014 that ALS Canada has included in donations. This reduces the donations compared with the accounting method ALS Canada uses. As such, with lower donations, Charity Intelligence's financial ratios differ from what ALS Canada reports.

This profile is an update that has been sent to ALS Society of Canada. Comments and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on August 29, 2019 by Stefan Tetzlaff.

Financial Review

Financial Ratios

Fiscal year ending December

2018

2017

2016

Administrative costs as % of revenues

6.7%

9.0%

8.5%

Fundraising costs as % of donations

29.1%

26.2%

25.5%

Total overhead spending

35.8%

35.1%

34.0%

Program cost coverage (%)

243.2%

261.8%

268.3%

Summary Financial Statements

All figures in $000s

2018

2017

2016

Donations

7,063

6,702

6,396

Goods in kind

0

0

251

Lotteries (net)

28

31

37

Investment income

193

227

243

Total revenues

7,284

6,961

6,928

Program costs

3,946

3,652

3,581

Grants

1,525

2,063

2,922

Administrative costs

478

603

568

Fundraising costs

2,052

1,755

1,633

Other costs

0

0

75

Total spending

8,000

8,073

8,779

Cash flow from operations

(716)

(1,112)

(1,851)

Capital spending

0

33

254

Funding reserves

14,449

16,091

18,313

Note: Ci recognized deferred revenues in donations, affecting total revenue by ($629k) in F2018, ($1.1m) in F2017, and ($2.9m) in F2016.
Ci reports lotteries net of expenses and removed these expenses from fundraising costs.

Salary Information

Full-time staff: 27

Avg. Compensation: $77,702

Top 10 staff salary range:

$350k +

0

$300k - $350k

0

$250k - $300k

0

$200k - $250k

1

$160k - $200k

0

$120k - $160k

3

$80k - $120k

2

$40k - $80k

4

< $40k

0

Information from most recent CRA Charities Directorate filings for F2017

Charity Contact

The information in this report was prepared by Charity Intelligence Canada and its independent analysts from publicly-available information. Charity Intelligence Canada and its analysts have made endeavours to ensure that the data in this report is accurate and complete but accept no liability.

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